PDA

View Full Version : What Is Your Favorite Campaign Setting Book and Why?



ZX6Rob
2016-04-11, 04:28 PM
Hi, everyone,

I've been in the process of documenting my homebrew campaign setting for the last couple of years, and I'm currently trying to flesh it out to the point where I could conceivably add artwork and maps and look at some kind of publication or public sharing of some kind. That being said, I'd like to look for some help and inspiration in organization and layout.

With that in mind, what are your favorite campaign setting books, and what jumps out at you from them? So, I'm not really asking what your favorite setting is, but rather, what is/are the most helpful, well-laid-out book(s) describing a campaign setting that you have used in your game or research? What did you like about them, and how did you use them?

Thanks for any input you all can offer on this topic!

Lord Torath
2016-04-12, 03:32 PM
I think my favorite has to be Lost Ships. Even though it includes one of my least-favorite (ie overpowered) spelljammers, it introduces several excellent ones as well. Plus it's got hundreds (okay, not literally "hundreds", literally "tens") of adventure ideas, as well as six to eight fully fleshed out ones (complete with plot hooks for further adventures). There are 3 or 4 ideas for getting groundlings into spaces, and several ideas for "planetfall" adventures (a trio of undead-beholder-infested moonlets, a space dock, and a small asteroid with a crazy invisible mage and his pet bulette living in an insane tower, among others). Plus there are tens of ship-to-ship or ship-to-space-denizen encounters. One of my favorites is the Gold-Mad dwarves who want to go over every rock on the PCs' ship to know where it originated, and how it ended up in your hands. There are combat encounters, semi-friendly encounters, and a fair number of rescue encounters for when the PCs are in dire straights (including the space dwarves: "Ye again. Have ye acquired any new rocks since we last met?").

Plus new magic items, flotsam and jetsam, and celestial (aka arcane space, not related to the Upper Planes) phenomena. Just so much for your imagination to run wild with. All in all just a really great book!

BWR
2016-04-12, 04:41 PM
So many to choose from. I'll pick three, not quite at random.

"Uncaged: Faces of Sigil" is a classic. It's nothing but NPCs, with a few graphs showing relationships between them, and you will be hard-pressed to find a more eclectic and interesting bunch of characters to sprinkle in your campaign. Due to the varied nature of the NPCs and their jobs and positions, it doesn't really work outside of Sigil, but boy is it a fun read.

"Bearers of Jade: The Second Book of the Shadowlands" for L5R. The most in character and unpleasant book about the Shadowlands and the Taint. The authors really brought out the horror and why it's such an unpleasant thing.

"Guide to the Galaxy", the DM's guide for the Dragonstar setting. With the barest of brushstrokes and the most minimal of detail it paints the Dragon Empire, an interstellar dragon-run sci-fi D&D setting. Few things have caught my imagination stronger with less information.

Scots Dragon
2016-04-12, 04:49 PM
The Old Grey Box, accept no substitutes.

Winter_Wolf
2016-04-12, 09:30 PM
The Old Grey Box, accept no substitutes.

Is that the FR campaign setting? I loved that one.

For me, my favorite campaign book was the 2E Viking Campaign Handbook in the TSR HIST series. I think they kept more or less the same organization principles in all the HIST series, but I only got a brief look at the Celtic Campaign book.

JAL_1138
2016-04-13, 03:40 AM
Probably the Planescape Campaign Setting box set that launched the product line. There are so many great books and box sets for it, but that one got it started and still tops my list for it. It immediately immerses you into the setting through the language, packs in a ton of easily-used information, had fantastic art, and came with some really neat maps.

Or the 1e World of Greyhawk box set, just for being an all-time classic by the Elder Grognard himself (and the best version of Greyhawk; 2e botched the setting hard IMO by trying to go grimdark with it and making Vecna an active villain-Sue instead of little more than an old legend at the source of a couple of artifacts).
EDIT: It gave enough details to help you suss out the world, its geography, and many of its customs, while leaving plenty of blank space, so to speak, to put your own stuff into it. A good balance between detail and breathing room. ALSO EDIT: The first Planescape box set shared this trait--not too much detail to the point a DM can't add anything, but enough to really get a good feel for the setting.

Yora
2016-04-13, 06:54 AM
I really like The Savage Frontier. Except for descriptions of the gods (being a Forgotten Realm book), it's a complete setting in a nice little package with a lot of stuff in it. Unlike later versions it is a completely lawless wilderness with a good number of mysterious wizard and barbarian tribes. The short descriptions of dungeons and ruins are all very interesting ideas for adventures and less a catalogue of well known and explored places. It also has no actual leadership, just towns defending themselves.
It's a great place for subarctic wilderness adventures, not some pastoral idyll.

ZX6Rob
2016-04-13, 11:47 AM
Awesome, thank you all for the suggestions. Some of these books I have, some I will have to track down, but I appreciate having some more direction.

DireSickFish
2016-04-13, 12:04 PM
Have to say "Magic of Faerun" because it provides a wealth of options, detailed background on gods and magic, and adds new mechanics while still feeling like a lore book and not a splatbook. This book is why I love Velsharoon so much in the setting.

Delwugor
2016-04-13, 02:41 PM
Greyhawk is the only fantasy setting I'll run D&D in. Mostly because of familiarity, but also because I've never ran out of ideas in it.
One fun quirk is that Rary always makes an appearance or is named in my games; sometimes as a bad guy, sometimes good and once he was a victim of the plot.

DontEatRawHagis
2016-04-13, 02:47 PM
Dark Sun 4e. It has all the lore of Dark Sun with full color pictures and legible formatting.

Probably the only Campaign Setting book I enjoyed reading cover to cover.

Democratus
2016-04-13, 03:56 PM
Greyhawk boxed set.

So much adventure and imagination spawned from that one box. A lifetime, in fact.

Scots Dragon
2016-04-13, 05:17 PM
Greyhawk boxed set.

So much adventure and imagination spawned from that one box. A lifetime, in fact.

Arguably a good chunk of the Golarion campaign setting was inspired by Greyhawk.

JAL_1138
2016-04-13, 08:52 PM
Note: From the Ashes is a completely different set with a different author, written for 2e, and is inferior to the World of Greyhawk box set from 1e that Gygax wrote. Mentioning it because I've seen From the Ashes be listed as "the Greyhawk box set" on eBay before.

Eisenheim
2016-04-14, 06:23 AM
Okay, this is a super weird answer, but it's the d20 modern core book. The three supernatural settings/class sets are some of the most concise yet still flavorful work I've read, and better integrations of spells and psionics into d20 mechanics than most. (I think d20 modern is an overlooked gem of d20 gaming.)

DireSickFish
2016-04-14, 09:00 AM
Okay, this is a super weird answer, but it's the d20 modern core book. The three supernatural settings/class sets are some of the most concise yet still flavorful work I've read, and better integrations of spells and psionics into d20 mechanics than most. (I think d20 modern is an overlooked gem of d20 gaming.)

The only time I played that I was a Constitution hero that was an Accountant. I didn't think it was that weird but my group sure did. They called me the Burly Accountant.

JAL_1138
2016-04-14, 09:07 AM
The only time I played that I was a Constitution hero that was an Accountant. I didn't think it was that weird but my group sure did. They called me the Burly Accountant.

Why would they think that's weird? It's not that different from, y'know, Superman, with his day job as a newspaper reporter.

Having a completely inoffensive day job as a cover is practically the longest running tradition in the superhero genre.

DireSickFish
2016-04-14, 10:32 AM
Why would they think that's weird? It's not that different from, y'know, Superman, with his day job as a newspaper reporter.

Having a completely inoffensive day job as a cover is practically the longest running tradition in the superhero genre.

Because an Accoutant is a "smart guy" thing so it would make sensn for an Intelligence Hero or a maybe a Wisdom Hero. And we were just average joes that new each other when **** went down. GM was a huge RP guy and was just using d20 because it was closest, wasn't big on mechanics.

I'll also not he wasn't a very -good- Accountant.

JAL_1138
2016-04-14, 10:59 AM
Because an Accoutant is a "smart guy" thing so it would make sensn for an Intelligence Hero or a maybe a Wisdom Hero. And we were just average joes that new each other when **** went down. GM was a huge RP guy and was just using d20 because it was closest, wasn't big on mechanics.

I'll also not he wasn't a very -good- Accountant.

Even for John Q. Publics, I know enough gym-rat lawyers I wouldn't blink at it.

BayardSPSR
2016-04-14, 06:53 PM
Even for John Q. Publics, I know enough gym-rat lawyers I wouldn't blink at it.

Sounds like my flatmate.

Democratus
2016-04-15, 07:29 AM
Fading Suns was also an amazing and promising campaign setting.

You could play anything from low fantasy to space opera all in one fictional universe.

hamlet
2016-04-15, 07:45 AM
I have a few.

The absolute top of the list is a tie between Greyhawk 1983 (the grey box) and probably slightly higher to Kingdoms of Kalamar (the books, not the recent 4th edition PDF they put out). They both have the "correct" balance of detail and open space that I really crave and Kalamar has that while edging towards slightly stronger realism, which I like.

The Harn setting is quite interesting. Same kind of reasons, but I get a different vibe off of it.